Too much to tell

Now it's been almost a year since I've logged in to blog... Oops. There is no way that I could possibly write about everything that has happened but I do think a little update is in order. First, work: Old Navy is so far out of the picture and I'm glad to be done with that. I really miss the girls I worked with but I just couldn't handle the drama anymore. Once I quit there, my "best boyfriend there could ever be" supported me for about four months while I finished out the semester and lived completely stress free. :) That got old though especially as summer began to approach. Right now I can say that I have had 4 different jobs in the last month. What struggling economy? ;) I first got a job at Sears and I don't know why in the world I thought I would like it because I just hate retail! Lasted for about two weeks but I was looking for jobs the entire time. Then I got a job at the cutest little frozen yogurt place that there has ever been. It's out here in Ivins (Where we live now! More on that later.) and it's owned by the cutest family ever. They were so nice and made me feel like I was just one of their kids and I loved it. They couldn't offer me very many hours but I got another part time job at an insurance agency pretty much being a telemarketer. That boss was the froyo boss's friend so I just felt really comfortable working for the both of them. I knew that scheduling wouldn't be so fun though so I didn't stop looking for jobs; really seeking a full time position for the summer. The second day after I started at the insurance agency, I interviewed at OTRA Protection and got the job. It's full time and pays $1500 base plus comission. As you can probably guess, I accepted that job offer and had to go to the other two bosses and quit. That was honestly the hardest thing I've had to do in a long time. I don't know why it was so hard but I hated everything about it. I didn't want to disappoint either of them and I was so happy working for them that I was somewhat sad that I got the full time job. I was really nervous about selling extended car warranties because that's nothing that I ever pictured myself doing. Ever. I started training there and felt like I was catching on pretty quickly. It's an inbound call center so I just answer calls, I don't call people which is muuuuch easier. They keep telling me that I'm the best new person they ever could have hired and I'm doing surprisingly well actually. I've gotten a decent amount of deals and I'm surprised at how well I can talk to people on the phone and get them to buy into what I'm saying haha. I seriously love my job now. Not because I get to talk to the most retarded people all over America everyday (there are A LOT of stupid people out there) but because I love the work environment. I love the people I work with, they're all really nice and freaking funny. I spend most of the day laughing, at least when the phones are slow. Plus since the majority of them are guys, they eat all the baked goods that I can't seem to stop making and that prevents me from being 500 pounds! Woo! My boss tells me pretty much everyday how good I'm doing and they're so easy to talk to and ask for help. They're really personable and it seems that they genuinely care about me, it's a nice change. The only thing I don't like is the schedule being Monday through Friday 10 to 7. I love the no weekend business but I really miss making dinner haha I know that's weird but it's true! My boss promises me that my schedule will be changing soon though so no complaints. :)  I am quickly realizing that loving your job makes all the difference. Of course the money is great but working for money alone is miserable. Onto my schooling: First and foremost, it's out for the summer! Yes! Oh by the way, I've transferred from SUU down to Dixie, I'm soooo over driving up to Cedar. I have now technically completed my associates degree but don't have the actual diploma because I haven't been at Dixie long enough. I still think it counts. :) I've been accepted into the College of Education at Dixie and I start the program courses in the Fall with 16 credits and an all day practicum in the elementary schools once a week. Now let's address my stupidity... So it's finals week and we're moving the week before right? (still to come) Of course we don't have internet access so I don't have the chance to check my Dixie email to see that one of my teachers decided to switch the day of our final to Monday morning instead of Wednesday morning. Guess who totally spaced one of only three finals she had to attend? Yeah... oops! Somehow I still pulled off a B in that class haha. Everyone makes mistakes, right? I got A's in all of my other classes which should really help with the scholarship I applied for. Anyways, I've got just two years left including the semester of student teaching and it's all laid out for me, that's a stress relief! I'm sooo excited to start really getting into teaching and especially to get real life experience in the schools. More exciting stuff now... We bought a house! After an excruciatingly long 8 months living with Marshal's uncle, we got out! Let me just tell you, that was miserable. Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate that we had somewhere nice to stay and save money but it just turned into an awful situation pretty quickly. We decided to just go to the bank on a whim and see what we could qualify for, not thinking that we could ever buy a house. We were extremely surprised to say the least! We immediately started looking at houses and soon after realized that any actual house with a yard that was in our price range were pretty much either short sales or foreclosures which meant a long time before moving. We kept looking with the "help" of our agent who was really not of any assistance except to use her little key to get us into houses that we wanted to look at. I'd say we looked at maybe 4 or 5 houses and we really loved one of them. It was a short sale and it already had multiple offers so we submitted our offer and continued looking. I was checking the internet every morning and calling our agent and Marshal with anything that looked interesting. One morning I saw a couple of new listings in Ivins and called Rachel (our agent) and texted Marshal while he was at work. Rachel said that we should look at it immediately and get our offer in that morning if we liked it. Here I am, stressing that we've got to go right now and Marshal won't text back or answer his phone. So on my way to look at the house, I surprised him at work and told him about it and we were off! We weren't super stoked on the idea of living so far out of town but we couldn't rule anything out at this point. We showed up at the house and were not too impressed at all. The stucco was a gross peachy color and the front yard had rocks, cactuses and weeds. I don't know if I should say fortunately here or not but the fence was blown down so we walked through the huge side yard and found the back door to be open and since Rachel hadn't arrived yet, we just let ourselves in. :) The place was kind of really a huge wreck. The owners had abandoned it and that was very obvious. Luckily while we were at the house, the selling agent just happened to stop by to put the for sale sign out in the front yard and he explained why they were selling it at what seemed to be a herendous price for the condition of the house and property. He made it clear that the list price was set for after they put 20 thousand dollars into fixing it up. However, he said that if we wanted to fix it up ourselves, he would knock that much off the price. That changed everything! That turned this sad, dirty house into a blank canvas for us to create whatever kind of environment we wanted to. Soon after our agent showed up, we followed her back to her office and put in our offer. We knew there would be multiple offers because that's just how it was with any house in our price range, however we also knew that it would be a very quick process. The next morning, Rachel called me and informed me that it had gone to a multiple offer situation and that they needed our best and final offer immediately. Our initial offer was really all we could do seeing how there was so much do be done with the house following the purchase. We had to stand firm on our offer and simply hope that it was good enough. That night at about 5:00, Rachel called and to our surprise, told us that they had chosen our offer! We could not believe it, seriously we were just dumbfounded. The seller said that we didn't have the highest offer even, but the best financing so they chose us! While excitement flooded over us as we sat on the back porch of the house we were miserably sharing with Uncle John but anxiety wasn't far from our minds either. We started rethinking about the house and had it chalked up to be pretty terrible in our minds. We had all but decided that we would back out of our offer when we drove back out to Ivins to look at it again. With the back door still unlocked, we let ourselves back into what could be our first home. We were completely shocked at how much better the house really was in comparison to what we were thinking. The cleaning crew had come by and you would never imagine it to make that big of a difference, but it really did! We were so sold and we couldn't stop running around saying what we would do to fix up this and that and how perfect the house could be with a little bit of work and a lot of fun time spent together. We continued through the buying process which is weirdly long for how little we actually had to do. However, because everything ran so smoothly, we were told that our closing date would be bumped up to the week before the original date which was April 26th. We started frantically packing and getting ready immediately. Okay that <<< was a total lie. We didn't start packing at all haha we just kind of rode the wave of excitement. We went to the title company on April 20th at 9:00 am and Marshal signed on the ten trillion dotted lines and we were one step away from owning our own house! When I say we or our house, it's figurative. The house is really only in Marshal's name but it's ours. :) The seller wasn't able to sign the closing documents until the next week unfortunately but by the time they did, we really were so ansy and ready to get into the house. As soon as we got the keys, Marshal moved a truckload of stuff over but we stayed one more night at the old house. The next morning, I shampooed our new carpets and did some cleaning along with a carload of stuff. The rest of the day was spent packing and moving and cleaning until both my car and his truck looked like a very successful game of Tetris. We stopped at Subway for some dinner before making the last little trek to our new house. Then something else came up... We didn't have a fridge and we desperately needed one. By this time it was pushing 9:00 pm but Home Depot was right across the street and they were still open. We had just enough room in the truck for a fridge so we decided to just do it. Huge mistake. We were there for almost two hours getting the worst service I have EVER experienced. If Duane ever reads this, you were incredibly horrible to work with. The fridge we wanted was blocked by the new shipment and was impossible to get to. They ended up selling us the floor model to make an excruciately long story short. We bought it because they had just put it out so it was as good as brand new. However, we go to pay for it and they think they're just going to put this brand new $600 fridge in the back of the truck with nothing around it? Seriously? I had totally had it by this point and it was freaking late and of course I was just a tad bitchy. :) I ever so politely informed them that that would not be happening and that Mr. Retarded Buck Toothed Disgusting Breath Duane would need to get someone of real assitance to do something to protect this fridge in the truck. Two other guys come out with freaking saran wrap. Seriously? To protect a refrigerator? Whatever. They wrapped it up and put it in the truck and we were finally on our way. It wasn't two seconds until Marshal called me and we vented over the phone all the way home about how we could not believe what had just happened haha it was like what might happen in an extremely frustrating movie. Ugh. Okay enough, we got to the house, got the fridge out (just the two of us--yeah I'm ripped.) okay so it had wheels, whatev. Then we unpacked the rest of our stuff which I swear has multiplied by like twenty times since we first moved to St. George. We finally had everything in the house as the clock struck 12. Longest. Day. Ever. but we'll never forget it because guess what? It was the first night we spent sleeping in the house that we now OWNED. The most awesome feeling ever. Okay so now quickly moving through the last month with the house: We unpacked relatively slowly but we were constantly buying things like our tv stand, microwave etc. Now, we've started the remodel and it is SO much fun. I've always wanted to do projects like this and be able to see the progress we make on our own house. We have now refinished the cabinets in both bathrooms and are working on tiling the counters and floors. It's a lot of work but thankfully, Marshal has got it under control. :) Oh here are the specs of the house: It's 3 bedrooms (although one is more like an office) 2 bathrooms. Two car garage on a quarter of an acre which is freaking huge in my opinion haha. It will be getting a new stucco and interior paint job asap at which point we will extend the fencing to create a larger fenced in back/side yard. The front room is kind of weirdly shaped but it looks really cute I think. It still needs a lot of work but I think it's adorable and getting better everyday. It's 1300 square feet so it's not super big but it's perfect sized for just us. Don't worry, I've been taking plenty of before and during pictures but I don't want to post them until we have after pictures too because the beginning state is kind of gross haha. Hmm.. what else can I update? My dad is finally back down here in a homey little care center and I think he's a lot happier. I don't know if it's something with the meds that they changed but he talks a lot more and is surprisingly upbeat at least with me. I visit him a few times a week usually on my lunch break and he's happy to see me every time. I love it so much. I've missed him more than even I knew over the last few years. I hope this turns out to be a good situation for him. Marshal is doing great, he loves his job and he comes home happy most days which I love! He's so sweet and I couldn't be happier to be celebrating 2 years together next weekend. :) Feels like two weeks! Although those would be a pretty jam-packed two weeks haha. I really miss having friends, I would say that's the one thing we're missing from our lives. It sucks how busy individual lives can get and I wish I could make the time to call every one of the friends I've had but truth is, I can't. I just keep the best ones as close as possible and I try to contact them often to make sure they're happy and to tell them I miss them so much. Yes, Bb and Lexa, you. :) I have a hard time making friends thanks to you. Only because I compare them all to you two and the relationship we've had for so long and how you don't drive me to insanity by just talking haha. Oh well though, for now we are very content. We take Lady for a walk every night and she chases jack rabbits and birds until her little heart is content and her little legs are exhausted. I love Ivins, it's such a cute place to live and it's actually nice to be away from town. It's perfect. As for putting a ring on it... I wish! :) It will happen but no news of that sort yet... to my despair haha. I guess buying a house put a little dent in our almost unlimited budget, damn. For now, I couldn't be happier or more excited for the things that are to come. It's crazy where life takes us, I never pictured myself with such a great person, owning a house at 19, and being so unbelievably blessed with the things we have.  I've got my priorities somewhat straight (except for the apparent physical NEED to bake something every single day), my family is supportive and we're taking it each day at a time but having a blast all the while. I can honestly say that I am the happiest I've been in a very long time or maybe ever. :) My attempt to update is pretty much complete I think, I know there is a lot I've left out but I tried haha. Our next big news is that we are getting Directv tomorrow morning and I can't wait! We are both so freaking sick of our limited movie selection haha. Plans are to go camping for our anniversary next weekend and then partying it up with my cute sister and her family for my birthday. Tuacahn say what? :) Can't wait! Now maybe I'll try to keep up on this thing somewhat. Yeah... See ya in six months.